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Shooting on Fla. campus may have been self-defense

PALM BAY, Fla. — One person was shot after a fight on the Palm Bay Campus of Eastern Florida State College, according to College Spokesman John Glisch. The person who was wounded is still alive, Glisch said.

Shooting on Fla. campus may have been self-defense

Authorities say a man in his 20s was critically wounded Jan. 30, 2014, after a fight that led to a shooting on the Palm Bay campus of Eastern Florida State College.
Tim Shortt, Florida Today

Gunman was being beaten, witnesses say.

The shooter retrieved a gun from this red Chrysler Sebring convertible to stop his attackers, police say. Its engine remained running hours after the Jan. 30, 2014, incident at the Palm Bay campus of Eastern Florida State College.(Photo: Tim Shortt, Florida Today)

Story Highlights

Shooting occurred around 1:50 p.m. ET Thursday

Man who was being beaten retrieved gun from car, shot an attacker, police say

Police say Amado Contreras, 25, and his 24-year old brother, Landyer, attacked Landrick Hamilton, 24, with a pool cue in front of the college's main building. During the fight, Hamilton got a gun from his car at about 1:50 p.m. ET and fired one shot, hitting Amado Contreras.

All three men are claiming self-defense. Amando Contreras' injury is not life-threatening, officials say.

The shooting comes almost eight weeks after a Florida appeals court struck down a regulation on another state university campus that banned students from storing guns in their cars. Florida law prevents anyone from possessing or exhibiting guns on school campuses, including university and college campuses; however, the same law says the ban doesn't apply to guns in cars.

The losing side of that decision has asked the court to rehear the case, said spokesman John Glisch of Eastern Florida State College. His school, which has about 35,000 students on four campuses across Brevard County, is keeping its campus ban in place until the issue is resolved.

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Hamilton has no prior history of discipline problems at the college, which was known as Brevard Community College until last year. But he violated the school's policy, Glisch said.

"If it was his gun, and he did bring it onto campus, he'd be subject to student discipline up to and including expulsion," Glisch said. College officials are waiting for a final report from police before taking any action.

Taylor Sebastian, 19, was walking to class when she heard the men fighting nearby. Then she thought she heard a firecracker, which was odd because it was raining.

Someone pushed her behind a van. She peeked around the corner to see a man carefully holding a black and silver handgun. He took it to campus security.

"I thought I was going to get shot," she said. "I was like, 'Oh, this is where it ends.' "

She was unharmed, and the campus was on lockdown for about 90 minutes. Classes for the rest of the day were canceled.

Authorities are considering self-defense as a possible defense for Hamilton, said Chief Doug Muldoon of Palm Bay Police. Palm Bay is a city of more than 100,000 residents about 90 miles south of Daytona Beach, Fla., on the Atlantic coast.

Police keep students away from the scene of a shooting Jan. 30, 2014, on the Palm Bay campus of Eastern Florida State College.(Photo: Tim Shortt, Florida Today)

Witness statements and evidence will be sent to the state attorney's office to determine if a crime occurred.

"At this point we don't have any information if they knew each other or what the actual cause, or what prompted this fight to take place," Muldoon told reporters at the scene. "The upside is this is not a random shooting. Not that any shooting is good, but it's not just somebody roaming the halls."

At the scene hours later, a splintered pool cue lay about 50 feet from a red Chrysler Sebring convertible with dark tint — the engine was still running. Crime-scene tape prevented several students from getting to their cars. Yellow evidence markers, sunglasses, a Nike Jordan shoe and a flat-brimmed Miami Dolphins baseball hat were strewn on the ground.

The incident was the third campus shooting across the USA in less than two weeks:

• On Jan. 21, Andrew Boldt, 21, of West Bend, Wis., died after being stabbed and shot in a basement electrical engineering classroom at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind. A fellow student and teaching assistant, Cody Cousins, 23, of Centerville, Ohio, is accused in Boldt's death and was charged with murder after surrendering to police.

• On Friday, Brandon Robinson, 20, of Orangeburg, S.C., died after being shot outside a dormitory at South Carolina State University in Orangeburg. Fellow student Justin Bernard Singleton, 19, of Charleston, S.C., was taken into custody early Saturday and charged with murder.

Also, on Saturday, Darion Aguilar, 19, of College Park, Md., shot two employees — Brianna Benlolo, 21, of College Park, and Tyler Johnson, 25, of Mount Airy, Md. — at a Zumiez skate gear store at Columbia Mall in Maryland before killing himself.

A shooting has been reported in Palm Bay campus parking lot. Campus is locked down and people are asked to stay inside with doors locked.